Blogs

Back in June I published 'The Shadow over Erris' an expose of the role of Shell, their Irish security company IRMS and the killing of Irishman Michael Dwyer during an attempt to start a civil war in Bolivia. In the period since some further facts have emerged from Bolivia and from some journalists digging for information in Ireland. The vast bulk of the media have however either ignore the story or even worse joined in the cover up attempts, Pat Kenny in particular should be singled out for mention. I've been updating the comments section of the indymedia publication from time to time, this blog entry is published in the aftermath of the RTE 'Death in Santa Cruz' documentary. This turned out to be better then expected, I mention it last in these updates.

Several hours later (from previous entry) and I'm now somewhere over the atlantic. The plane is new fangled which means that the films are no longer tapes / dvds but running off a hard disk so there are lots of them and each individual can control the play rate. Clint Eastwoords Flag of our Fathers seemed the most promising of the movies on offer so I went for it fearful of some jinogistic justification for the current wry - Eastwood having a reputation as a right winger.

There are no direct flights in winter so my route to Canada takes me via London. I'd guess I have taken this flight, the 50 minutes from Dublin to London, 30 times in the last 20 years. Probably half of that time for political events of one sort or another. (a recovered post from March 2007, see end)

The last 18 months or so I've been reading and note taking furiously on the period around the 1916 insurrection in Dublin. I managed to get three articles and a talk out of it, probably 20,000 words or so. The missing bit though is what was going on in the north and thats what I've been working on since the summer. So now I'm sitting on a finalised 11.000 word first draft which Sovietpop is reading for me. (The entry is from Feb 2007, see note at end)

We'd a national Shell to Sea meeting in Dublin this Saturday at the end of which we had a talk from Heather Milton Lightening of the Indigenous Environmental Network about the struggle against Tar Sand extraction in Alberta, Canada. This is a filthy process that involves vast open cast mines, tailing ponds that can be seen from space and the use of huge quantities of water and energy making it a major cause of climate change. Back in 2006 I mentioned the dangers it posed in the conclusion of the article 'The politics and reality of the peak oil scare' I wrote with Chekov Feeney.

We recently hosted Jonathan of the South African Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) in Dublin. He was doing a speaking tour of Ireland and Britain on the subject of 'After Apartheid: Social struggle in South Africa'. I've just uploaded the audio of his Dublin talk, its linked below. Jonathan is another person I've 'known' online for quite a long period so it was good to meet him IRL at the London anarchist bookfair which provided the first date for his talk.

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